


By Moonlight

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1920s, F/M, Historians, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22685404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Evangeline is a rather improper historian. Propriety, of course, means very little when you meet a minotaur.
Relationships: Male Minotaur/Curious Female Historian Who's Surprisingly Into That, Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	By Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainellie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainellie/gifts).



His name, he says, is Endymion. 

Honestly, Evangeline thinks, it's really quite a feat that he says anything at all; English, or Greek, or any language in general, must be rather difficult when you're a minotaur, which he most certainly is. He's seven feet tall and he has hooves where you'd expect a man's feet would be, though she understands that's not precisely what the ancient Greeks imagined. He has horns you'd be more likely to find charging through the streets of Pamplona on a sunny summer afternoon than skulking in a Cretan olive grove at something very close to midnight. But that was where she met him for the first time, not so very long ago, and that's where they both are now.

It seems a great many things are rendered vastly more complex than they ought to be when you're literally bull-headed. Ordinary trousers don't fit particularly well over the thick muscles of his legs, and that's without considering the way they bend, or the fact he has hooves; he can't very well take a boat to England and present himself as he is on Savile Row, at least not if he doesn't want to cause a general public outcry. Evangeline would never ask him to, of course, but she does think it's a pity that he can't, even if she's not convinced a tailor would know what to do with him. 

A suit might look dashing, though, if a little unconventional - of course, _unconventional_ is a word she's grown accustomed to. She's 'borrowed' a billowy white shirt for him from one of the larger men on her expedition and it looks really rather flattering, all buttons down his chest and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, even if it might be just a little tight across the shoulders. The problem is, it does look a smidge out of place with his loincloth, and not just because of the faded red linen.

He was bleeding when they met. She and the expedition she's attached to had been following faint new textual evidence that the labyrinth of Minos had actually existed somewhere on the island, and that evidence had led them there; after several long days' work scraping about in the dust feeling really rather disheartened, she was walking in the olive grove to clear her head and that was where she found him. She almost fled except when she stopped to look over her shoulder, he wasn't chasing. She went back. She helped him stitch the cut in his forehead, with a needle and thread from her first aid kit, and stayed with him till he could stand again without swaying somewhat alarmingly. 

He thanked her, in Greek and then in French and then in English, while she gaped at him, then she said, _You're welcome_ , and then she said, _I'm sorry, you know. I didn't mean to stare_. He said he didn't mind, not really - he'd grown rather used to it over the years, on the rare occasions that he ventured out. He'd fallen, he said, and hit his head, which explained why the tip of one horn was chipped off, and before she left he let her touch the spot where it was missing. Three weeks later, she's gone back to the grove every night, to re-dress the cut, to remove the stitches, to take him a shirt he seems to quite like wearing. She's gone back every night and he's met her there, and seemed happy to see her. He's told her stories, and she's loved them all. And she hasn't told another soul.

One night, she arrived a little early. As he rose out of the pool, she knows her old teachers would have been appalled; a proper lady should avert her eyes, but she absolutely didn't. Of course, a proper lady would wear skirts instead of trousers, should never cut her hair into a bob, and wouldn't go traipsing about the Cretan countryside searching for lost mythological structures. Really, by comparison, watching a naked minotaur as he patted water off his skin seemed strangely tame. And honestly, what she saw of him was really rather beautiful. It certainly made her heartbeat quicken. She's never been very proper, so perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised. The only surprise was how hotly she blushed when he finally saw her, and how quickly he snatched his loincloth into place. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "I really didn't mean to stare."

He looked at her, still dripping, as he picked up a cloth to dry himself. "Everyone I've met has stared," he told her. "If you're curious then honestly, I don't mind you looking. But don't you mind, though?" 

She laughed. She threw her arms around him and, maybe a little shyly, he wrapped his around her too. Honestly, he seemed more concerned for her modesty than she was, and she told him so.

One night, she arrived a little early. As he washed in the pool, she slipped off her clothes and went to join him; he was wary only till she took his hands and put them on her. He was wary only till she led him out and sat him down, and straddled his thighs in the moonlight. She was wary only because she wasn't sure he'd fit. He did, as he's now proven multiply. He fits, as he proves almost every night.

One night, he said his name is Endymion and she said, "Like Selene's lover?" 

He looked up at the moon in the sky high above and he told her, "I suppose I _do_ have eternal youth." In his way, he smiled. "If not eternal beauty."

He didn't deny it. Honestly, she's not sure what to think; the myths are full of curses, after all, at least as much as they are happy endings. She's not sure what he'd find worse: beauty in eternal sleep, or what he has. She knows what she'd prefer, though; this way, at least, she can speak with him, and everything else they do. In all her life, she's never felt as vital as she is with him. And she knows soon he has to leave again; the surface is not safe for him, and she knows he's only spent this long for her.

In the grove tonight, she sits down on the half-ruined column beside him. She sets her hand down on his forearm and she rests her head against his shoulder. 

"Will you take me to the labyrinth?" she asks. 

He stands. He takes her hand. "I thought you'd never ask," he says. And then he leads the way.


End file.
